Does system ram help out video card ram?

[Jinx55]

Hey!

I'm planning on buying a 8800gts 320mb soon, i'm tempted by the 640mb version but not sure i can afford it. Now all the reviews i've read say that at higher resolutions (1600x1220+) the 320mb might not be sufficient to load in all the textures etc and so performance takes a big hit.
Does the system ram not help with this? ie, if i added more memory to my computer, would that increase performance, and help out the 320mb on the gfx card? or would the gfx card memory just be a bottleneck in this process?

cheers!

 

[Ronaldo]

system ram helps overall performace but it does not increase the gfx ram.

what resolution u running? if its 1280x1024 then get the 320mb version i have seen them cheap as 185 inc del

 

[HEADRAT]

Well if you have a cheap GFX card that uses system ram (turbo cache) then yes, in the scenario you've posted no

HEADRAT

 

[melbourne720]

I think the hit on the 320MB model is only for Doom 3 engine games on Ultra quality. Oblivion has almost no difference.

 

[Jinx55]

My monitor runs at a max of 1600x1200, which i've heard isn't toooo harsh for the gts 320mb card. I just wondered if instead of forking out for the bigger card I should get more system ram...... but if it has no bearing on helping out performance of graphics/textures then i may consider the bigger card.

I only ask this slightly nooby question as i know it's recommended to have at least 2gig of system ram for games like battlefield2 to speed up getting textures through and wonder how a lack of video card ram can help/hinder this.

 

[Corasik]

Memory on the graphics card is used for the scene your currently looking at + all the textures for the area of the game your currently in. (In a zoned game, generally all textures for the zone will be pushed to the card assuming it has enough ram).

Graphics card ram is the 'fastest' memory resource for a game engine.

On the other hand, main memory is cheap, and far bigger, so it can be used as a secondary store for textures. This is often used as a texture cache, as its a ton faster than the hard drive. So if you have space it will cache old textures incase you return to a zone you already visited (common in mmorpg's where you frequently change zones, then go back to the previous zones later).

So both memory on the card, and main memory can and often do improve gaming performance.

On the other hand, if you play 1920x1200 with FSAAx16, AFx16 etc, then anything less than a 512meg card wont even have enough memory to display the current scene, especially if you have pre-rendering enabled.

How much of a performance issue you'll get really does depend on how aggressivly the game caches textures in the graphics memory, and/or system ram.

To be honest, as long as the card has enough ram to run the games you play at the the resolution and AA/AF you like the your ok. For instance 1920x1200 with AA/AF disabled is no problem even on a 256meg card. But turn on AA/AF and it will crash and burn.

 

[Jinx55]

ah! getcha! many thanks for the reply! just the answer i was looking for...